Lofty Dogmas: Poets on PoeticsDeborah Brown, Annie Finch, Maxine Kumin University of Arkansas Press, 1. sept 2005 - 440 pages Compiled by three noted poets, this is an eclectic, stimulating, and informed selection of poets' remarks on poetry spanning eras, ethnicities, and aesthetics. The 102 selections from nearly as many poets reach back to the Greeks and Romans, then draw on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Milton, on to Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Poe, then Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, Rilke, and Pound, concluding with many of our contemporaries, including Hall, Clifton, Mackey, Kunitz, and Rukeyser. The book is divided into three sections. "Musing" concerns issues of inspiration, "Making," issues of craft, from diction to meter to persona and voice, and "Mapping," the role of poetry and the poet. Headnotes at the beginning of each selection provide background information about the poet and commentary on the significance of the selection. There is also a useful appendix with a listing of essays arranged according to more specific topics. As the poets write in their introduction: "This book was intended to deepen readers' understanding of age-old poetic ideas while at the same time pointing out new directions for thinking about poetry, juxtaposing the familiar and the strange, reconfiguring old boundaries, and shaking up stereotypes." |
Contents
4 | |
6 | |
14 | |
22 | |
29 | |
35 | |
53 | |
DONALD HALL | 61 |
ROBERT DUNCAN | 263 |
FANNY HOWE | 269 |
HEATHER MCHUGH | 276 |
HARRYETTE MULLEN | 282 |
RAFAEL CAMPO | 288 |
LISA ROBERTSON | 297 |
ANONYMOUS | 309 |
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | 315 |
CALLIMACHUS | 124 |
BASHO | 130 |
SAMUEL DANIEL | 137 |
ALEXANDER POPE | 144 |
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE | 151 |
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS | 158 |
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS | 166 |
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS | 180 |
WALLACE STEVENS | 189 |
ROBERT FROST | 195 |
JULIA ALVAREZ | 203 |
T S ELIOT | 212 |
ELIZABETH BISHOP | 218 |
FRANK OHARA | 224 |
LOUISE BOGAN | 231 |
ROBERT HASS | 242 |
EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY | 248 |
CHARLES OLSON | 256 |
ANONYMOUS | 323 |
MATTHEW ARNOLD | 329 |
RAINER MARIA RILKE | 339 |
HOWARD NEMEROV | 345 |
LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR | 359 |
AIMÉ CÉSAIRE | 365 |
DENISE LEVERTOV | 372 |
CHARLES BERNSTEIN | 379 |
JUDITH ORTIZ COFER | 385 |
NAOMI SHIHAB | 393 |
DEREK WALCOTT | 401 |
THEMATIC INDEX | 419 |
62 | 420 |
NATHANIEL MACKEY | 427 |
THERESA HAK KYUNG | 433 |
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES | 437 |
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Common terms and phrases
American Poets Annie Finch artist Bashō beautiful became become book of poems born called century Coleridge collection College criticism culture death duende Eliot emotion English epic essay excerpt experience Ezra Pound father feel formal free verse Frost Greek human idea images imagination inspiration Keats KUNITZ language later literary literature lives lyric Marianne Moore married meaning meter mind mother moved Muse National Book Award National Poetry Month nature Nobel Patriarchal poetry Phillis Wheatley pleasure poet poet's poetic political Prize prose poem published reader Reprinted rhyme rhythm sense Shelley sing song sonnet sound speak speech Sprung Rhythm stanza style syllables T. S. Eliot thing thought tion tradition translated University voice W. H. Auden William William Carlos Williams women words Wordsworth writing written wrote Yeats York Yusef Komunyakaa
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Page 18 - I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain, Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
Page 34 - It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity — he is continually in for — and filling some other Body...
Page 316 - Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.
Page 172 - Image" is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.
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Page 223 - We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter.
Page 116 - He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came. One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh!...